Sunday I decided to cross over to Indiana at Hawesville and to route my own course for a few days since the ACA route through here is so circuitous. The Indiana landscape seemed more open and the hills a bit less strenuous than how things had been in Kentucky. Still, it was very quiet and rural, especially on a Sunday. I did find an excellent restaurant and pub, where I got this shot of the Ohio from on high. Guess the name of the restaurant: The Overlook. After a snack and some chatting if ground on to the small town of Corydon, Indiana where I stayed in a commercial campground. I plunged into their pool, and slept under the roof of their  creekside gazebo. 

I had lined up Warmshowers stays for Monday and Tuesday night. The Monday one was in Madison, Indiana, a pristine little river town with a rich history, especially in connection with the Underground Railway. My host was a local professional whose family had a long history in Madison. What an amazing host Bob was. He even took me out to dinner at a local brew pub where we had quite a visit with the owner, Scott. I had sushi/sashimi as good as any I've ever had. He also took me on an extended tour of the town, which he knew lots about because of his work on the historic preservation board. 

I was feeling a little low-energy on the first lap of the next day, probably due to a coffee deficit. I pinked right up at the Macdonalds in Versailles, Indiana (say like percales) with a good caffeine infusion. I needed a steady nerve the rest of that day for the very challenging ride into Ohio, specifically into Cincinnati to find my next Warmshowers host. By the way, the climb up into this hillacious town involved about a half mile of the steepest road I have been on during this whole ride: Van Blaricum Road. It was really all I could do to get up the grade, standing up in the lowest gear. Even so I had to rest three or four times on this difficult stretch. Narrow, windy, and plenty of impatient city traffic to add to the thrill.

It was worth the effort though, because I found the home of Bob and Jean, another pair of great hosts. Jean made a dinner-pork loin, 2 kinds of homemade bread, bliss potato salad, bean salad-that was one of the gustatory highlights of the trip. This couple have a lot of bicycle touring experience, much of it on a tandem. They told me about a trip they took up to Alaska in particular. Hmmm. They let me treat them to ice cream at a local favorite spot. Jean made me my favorite breakfast the next morning, eggs sunny side up on homemade toast, while bob dre the elaborate maps necessary to get me across the city to the suburban bike shop I wanted to reach and to the bike trail which runs many miles northeast across Ohio.

I haven't done big city riding since Denver and Cincinnati was really fun to ride through. You might not think so, but city scenes can actually be a bit of  relief from endless bucolic landscape. In particular the spaghetti of major highway and railroad viaducts and bridges downtown really got my interest and attention. The route out to the suburbs was complicated and involved lots of segments of bike trail alternating with city streets. I certainly was glad I had Bob's maps, but I needed all my other resources too to figure it all out safely. I rode grimly past the little roadside shrine that had already been placed near Lunken Airport for a bicyclist who had been killed by a car which hit him from behind the previous day. Eek.

I got to Bishop's Bike Shop in Milford around 2 and discussed my chain/ shifting problem with mechanic Sebastian, who was amazingly knowledgable and responsive. We decided the best thing to do was put on a new chain and keep the old one--I could put it back on if the new chain made things worse. He also spent some time, no charge, diagnosing and fixing a subtle but significant problem in the rear dérailleur, caused by a failed end cap on the cable housing. With both problems corrected I took a test ride (up adjacent Sycamore Street with a good 12 percent grade) and experienced smooth shifting and no skipping! Thanks again, Sebastian. An hour or three later I was comfortably camped at Stonelick State Park.